[haiku] Re: Booting Haiku PPC

Alan Burkes wrote:



What use would anyone have to run so many
vector math-based process at once, anyways?


Um... i can think of a few things


I was trying to say that we'd have to write more code to support using
any of the SPUs.


That means integrating the SDK, I don't know if it'd be too difficult.



Cell is notoriously difficult to program, so I don't
think we have too many people with that kind of brainpower.
It has a reputation for being difficult but most of the people who say that have never actually programmed it. I think it's more accurate to say It's "more involved" rather than difficult. If you can build an OS as complex as Haiku programming Cell is going to be a walk in the park.
There is a perhaps a mental "mode switch" involved as it's not the same as a traditional CPU, however there's plenty of people out there programming much more exotic stuff than Cell. And that's without the benefit of the SDK or indeed any of the other programing kits that are designed to make life easier.
Programming the SPEs is just normal vector programming with double buffering, hardly rocket science (you can also program them as general purpose cores but there's usually no point). The most complex part is the multithreading / multiprocessing, that's not exactly new to the BeOS world... 


Furthermore, there won't be any applications available,


Anything that can be recompiled for PPC will work on Cell.
They wont automatically use the SPEs but you can either add that support yourself or you can use the math libraries available which do it all behind the scenes. If they're standard OS libs, apps might use the SPEs with any changes at all.
The big problem with the PS3 is the GPU is locked off but you can always use an SPE to do graphics. 


as BeOS was
never meant for an archtecture remotely like this, so it's out of the
focus of the Haiku project.
Actually BeOS was first written for a platform *exactly* like this. See: 
http://www.bebox.nu/images.php?s=images/hobbit


Last time I checked, the PS3 was the more open source friendly
console... I'd say out of the 3 leading console systems now, the PS3
would probably be the best choice for a Haiku port at this point...


Yes, the PS3 is the most open-source friendly console available today,
in that they used the Linux kernel and they released the source code
as the GPL required them to. However, it is not the most homebrew
friendly console - the Wii is really the only console which can run
homebrew easily at this point,
You can use the PS3 as a full PC if you want, no hacking required. I can't imagine anything more homebrew friendly. For the Wii it requires installing hacks which firmware updates can and do break. 


and there's more documentation on it's
CPU then there is on any of the other consoles'.


You can get full docs for Cell, including full architecture specs.
That's no different than the docs you can get for the Wii CPU.


Though, I guess we could try to strike a deal with Sony about making
our project an official Sony-Licensed product, but that would take
more time because we'd have to change the archetecture of our system
in order to make it take advantage of the PS3's features, which Sony
will most undoubtedly require. Frankly, it's way too much effort do
get that kind of project rolling.
You do not require *any* license from Sony. The PS3 supports installing 3rd party OSs and can boot directly into them. 


(Although I guess the same can be said about what we did with Haiku,
and look where we've accomplished!)



now, while we're all throwing our .02 into the mix and dreaming out
loud: I'd personally rather see someone focusing on an ARM port ;)


Amen! I want it to be the OS of choice for the Pandora! ^_^


I certainly support a port to ARM & Pandora :-)


(Hmm. Porting Haiku to the Pandora looks thousands of times easier
then any of the other target platforms, actually, since it has an
open-source design and the components are fairly well-documented....)
Actually, that's only true for some of the parts (you should certainly be able to get the ARM docs but you might need to fill i a form).
I think going multiplatform is a good thing, ARM is a good choice of course ;-) they'll be appearing in netbooks soon where a light OS will be a benefit.
PS3 is also a good choice, the PPC OSs don't seem terribly interested or are even downright hostile and Linux hasn't really taken off. So, it's a wide open target, and there are 17 million of the them! 







--

Nicholas Blachford
nicholas@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.blachford.info
"Does it give loads of powaa for little wonga and overclock like a mutha?" - dizietsma

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